350 is the number for the day. Don't necessarily play it on the mid-day or evening Pick Three, but pay attention to it.
Author and activist Bill McKibben has been focusing on that number because it represents the parts-per-million of carbon dioxide at which our climate is considered in the safe zone. Actually it represents the upper limit of the safe zone.
Currently the Earth's atmosphere is around 420 parts per million.
Here's a link to the 350.org site.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Spinning Plates
The accompanying video offers the startling statistic that the upper one per cent of our nation owns 90% of the wealth of the nation.
In light of that figure, one should ask how much of the nation's upper one per cent has chosen to live in New Albany, and what are the consequences of this disparity when assessing our seeming inability to keep the plates of our community spinning?
Undoubtedly the fiscal problems New Albany faces are not unique. The manufacturing base of this country has been off-shored, and the replacement jobs have often been out of reach to those displaced due to their prior, now irrelevant training. I don't believe we can create meaningful prosperity by shuffling an increasing number of cheap imported goods among ourselves.
We can only build a prosperous future by building a sustainable economy which offers needed goods and services to a populace that understands the need for this cooperative equation. People who are stretched to the limit by layoffs, downsizing, rising health care costs, and a throttled civic compact which sees good only in lower taxes, won't participate in a vibrant local economy. They understandably see salvation in Wal-Mart's low prices, and value meals at fast food joints.
New Albany's up swinging commercial district is testament to the vision some have shown. It is also a testament to the pump-priming value of the Caesar/Horseshoe foundation's benevolence in regard to the YMCA. We need to heed that lesson and support the second phase of downtown revitalization.
Last night we went to Wick's and were shutout by a two hour wait. That would have been acceptable to my wife and I but we were accompanied by two grandchildren for whom a two hour wait at the bar would have been mutually distressing. It seems that New Albany has proven to be fertile ground for restaurants and bars; with Phase Two on the horizon we need to look at a broader vision for downtown. If that broader vision is realized, it can and will contribute to a more sustainable local economy that will benefit us all.
In light of that figure, one should ask how much of the nation's upper one per cent has chosen to live in New Albany, and what are the consequences of this disparity when assessing our seeming inability to keep the plates of our community spinning?
Undoubtedly the fiscal problems New Albany faces are not unique. The manufacturing base of this country has been off-shored, and the replacement jobs have often been out of reach to those displaced due to their prior, now irrelevant training. I don't believe we can create meaningful prosperity by shuffling an increasing number of cheap imported goods among ourselves.
We can only build a prosperous future by building a sustainable economy which offers needed goods and services to a populace that understands the need for this cooperative equation. People who are stretched to the limit by layoffs, downsizing, rising health care costs, and a throttled civic compact which sees good only in lower taxes, won't participate in a vibrant local economy. They understandably see salvation in Wal-Mart's low prices, and value meals at fast food joints.
New Albany's up swinging commercial district is testament to the vision some have shown. It is also a testament to the pump-priming value of the Caesar/Horseshoe foundation's benevolence in regard to the YMCA. We need to heed that lesson and support the second phase of downtown revitalization.
Last night we went to Wick's and were shutout by a two hour wait. That would have been acceptable to my wife and I but we were accompanied by two grandchildren for whom a two hour wait at the bar would have been mutually distressing. It seems that New Albany has proven to be fertile ground for restaurants and bars; with Phase Two on the horizon we need to look at a broader vision for downtown. If that broader vision is realized, it can and will contribute to a more sustainable local economy that will benefit us all.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Working Class Hero
Michael Moore's latest movie, "Capitalism A Love Story", according to The Tribune, will not be shown in Southern Indiana theaters. Well, it was shown to a packed house at the Baxter Avenue Theaters tonight. Those in attendance were treated to a finely crafted walk down a well-reported, but seldom seen trail. Many of the scoundrels of modern commerce who became known to us through the implosion of the financial markets, which began last year about this time, got their share of screen time. But the real stars were those, people just like you and me, who were ground down by the chicanery of those who pocket the gains doled out by the mysterious hand of the market.
Earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to transit back into the USA, uncorrupted, and free of the clutches of the socialist domain to our north. That nearby place offers many things which appear far out of our grasp on this side of the world's longest unprotected border. Universal health care, a concrete plan to vastly improve the nation's rail system, and returnable/refillable beer bottles are just a few of our neighbors' ideas I'd like to see adopted here.
Moore's movie and our Canadian vacation serve as a backdrop to the news I missed while I was out of town. First reports had New Albany in a state of economic free fall. According to initial reports, about one third of the City's general fund would need to be cut during the final ninety days of 2009 to get us in line with the strictures of the 2009 budget, which had not yet been certified by the state when I left town. I hate to carp, but a budget system which does not show its teeth until nine or ten months into the year is asinine. No, I don't have a better idea. But one wonders how such a system could be devised in the first place, and allowed to continue after that. And, one wonders if our governor chuckles to his inner Mitch when crowing about Indiana's One Billion Dollar Surplus.
The real news was considerably less stunning. The first report was like an Antarctic skinny dip. The real news, by comparison, was like the first sit-down into a Blue River innertube on a cloudy beerless day in May. Both unpleasant for sure, but the latter slightly more tolerable than the former.
Canada seems to work as a country because its citizens decided to get along. I know there's that dust-up with the parti Quebecois a few years ago. But the dominion's people appear to have accepted that they share a common destiny and that while fulfilling that destiny, they are their brother's keeper. The moving-target news reports from New Albany highlighted not a common destiny, but factionalization, which subverts our progress. Of course, we who live here are too familiar with the daily workings of the local scene and we see the shadings and between-the-lines dialogue that is not perceptible to a visitor. The traveller sees the big picture while a resident sees the rotogravure dots.
Moore, as he usually does in his movies, homes in on those, in Bob Dylan's words, "bent out of shape by society's pliers". As we all know now, those pliers were wielded relentlessly, viciously, inhumanely, and regrettably, to wider-than-deserved approval by what Teddy Roosevelt called in his day, "the malefactors of great wealth."
People are displaced from their homes. Factories are shut down. Presidents speak foolishly. Presidents speak presciently and eloquently. Disgust at what has befallen our country is tempered,ever-so-slightly, by hopeful approaches undertaken by everyday people.
The movie looks both at the big picture, and between the roto dots. That's an effective formula for Moore's movies. Perhaps we could employ the same formula when viewing New Albany.
I titled this post, "Working Class Hero", which is what I'd call Michael Moore. He more or less bestows that title on someone else though. If you see the movie,and I urge you to,see if you agree.
Two thumbs up.
Earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to transit back into the USA, uncorrupted, and free of the clutches of the socialist domain to our north. That nearby place offers many things which appear far out of our grasp on this side of the world's longest unprotected border. Universal health care, a concrete plan to vastly improve the nation's rail system, and returnable/refillable beer bottles are just a few of our neighbors' ideas I'd like to see adopted here.
Moore's movie and our Canadian vacation serve as a backdrop to the news I missed while I was out of town. First reports had New Albany in a state of economic free fall. According to initial reports, about one third of the City's general fund would need to be cut during the final ninety days of 2009 to get us in line with the strictures of the 2009 budget, which had not yet been certified by the state when I left town. I hate to carp, but a budget system which does not show its teeth until nine or ten months into the year is asinine. No, I don't have a better idea. But one wonders how such a system could be devised in the first place, and allowed to continue after that. And, one wonders if our governor chuckles to his inner Mitch when crowing about Indiana's One Billion Dollar Surplus.
The real news was considerably less stunning. The first report was like an Antarctic skinny dip. The real news, by comparison, was like the first sit-down into a Blue River innertube on a cloudy beerless day in May. Both unpleasant for sure, but the latter slightly more tolerable than the former.
Canada seems to work as a country because its citizens decided to get along. I know there's that dust-up with the parti Quebecois a few years ago. But the dominion's people appear to have accepted that they share a common destiny and that while fulfilling that destiny, they are their brother's keeper. The moving-target news reports from New Albany highlighted not a common destiny, but factionalization, which subverts our progress. Of course, we who live here are too familiar with the daily workings of the local scene and we see the shadings and between-the-lines dialogue that is not perceptible to a visitor. The traveller sees the big picture while a resident sees the rotogravure dots.
Moore, as he usually does in his movies, homes in on those, in Bob Dylan's words, "bent out of shape by society's pliers". As we all know now, those pliers were wielded relentlessly, viciously, inhumanely, and regrettably, to wider-than-deserved approval by what Teddy Roosevelt called in his day, "the malefactors of great wealth."
People are displaced from their homes. Factories are shut down. Presidents speak foolishly. Presidents speak presciently and eloquently. Disgust at what has befallen our country is tempered,ever-so-slightly, by hopeful approaches undertaken by everyday people.
The movie looks both at the big picture, and between the roto dots. That's an effective formula for Moore's movies. Perhaps we could employ the same formula when viewing New Albany.
I titled this post, "Working Class Hero", which is what I'd call Michael Moore. He more or less bestows that title on someone else though. If you see the movie,and I urge you to,see if you agree.
Two thumbs up.
Monday, September 21, 2009
David Byrne on a Bike
The following is an excerpt from former Talking Head, and lifetime musical genius, David Byrne's new book "Bicycle Diaries". It was featured today on The Huffington Post.
It is interesting in light of the late arrival of bike lanes here. It is equally interesting for Byrne's observations on urban personality traits.
(italics added)
__________________________________
I ride my bike almost every day here in New York. It's getting safer to do so, but I do have to be fairly alert when riding on the streets as opposed to riding on the Hudson River bike path or similar protected lanes. The city has added a lot of bike lanes in recent years, and they claim they now have more than any other city in the United States. But sadly most of them are not safe enough that one can truly relax, as is possible on the almost completed path along the Hudson or on many European bike lanes. That's changing, bit by bit. As new lanes are added some of them are more secure, placed between the sidewalk and parked cars or protected by a concrete barrier.
Between 2007 and 2008 bike traffic in New York increased 35 percent. Hard to tell if the cart is leading the horse here-- whether more lanes have inspired more bicycle usage or the other way around. I happily suspect that for the moment at least, both the Department of Transportation and New York City cyclists are on the same page. As more young creative types find themselves living in Brooklyn they bike over the bridges in increasing numbers. Manhattan Bridge bike traffic just about quadrupled last year (2008) and the bike traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge tripled. And those numbers will keep increasing as the city continues to make improvements to bike lanes and adds bike racks and other amenities. In this area the city is, to some extent, anticipating what will happen in the near future--a lot more people will use bikes for getting to work or for fun.
On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town. Unlike many other U.S. cities, here in New York almost everyone has to step onto the sidewalk and encounter other people at least once a day--everyone makes at least one brief public appearance. I once had to swerve to avoid Paris Hilton, holding her little doggie, crossing the street against the light and looking around as if to say, "I'm Paris Hilton, don't you recognize me?" From a cyclist's point of view you pretty much see it all.
Just outside a midtown theater a man rides by on a bike-- one of those lowriders. He's a grown man, who seems pretty normal in appearance, except he's got a monstrously huge boom box strapped to the front of the bike.
I ride off on my own bike and a few minutes later another boom-box biker passes by. This time it's a Jane-Austen-reading, sensible-shoe-wearing woman. She's on a regular bike, but again, with a (smaller) boom box strapped to the rear ... I can't hear what the music is.
City Archetypes
There is a magazine in a rack at the entrance to my local Pakistani lunch counter called InvAsian: A Journal for the Culturally Ambivalent.
What is it about certain cities and places that fosters specific attitudes? Am I imagining that this is the case? To what extent does the infrastructure of cities shape the lives, work, and sensibilities of their inhabitants? Quite significantly, I suspect. All this talk about bike lanes, ugly buildings, and density of population isn't just about those things, it's about what kinds of people those places turn us into. I don't think I'm imagining that people who move to L.A. from elsewhere inevitably lose a lot of that elsewhere and eventually end up creating L.A.-type work and being L.A.-type people. Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.How does this happen? Do they seep in surreptitiously through peer pressure and casual conversations? Is it the water, the light, the weather? Is there a Detroit sensibility? Memphis? New Orleans? (No doubt.) Austin? (Certainly.) Nashville? London?
Berlin? (I would say there's a Berlin sense of humor for sure.) Düsseldorf? Vienna? (Yes.) Paris? Osaka? Melbourne? Salvador? Bahia? (Absolutely.)
I was recently in Hong Kong and a friend there commented that China doesn't have a history of civic engagement. Traditionally in China one had to accommodate two aspects of humanity--the emperor and his bureaucracy, and one's own family. And even though that family might be fairly extended it doesn't include neighbors or coworkers, so a lot of the world is left out. To hell with them. As long as the emperor or his ministers aren't after me and my family is okay then all's right with the world. I had been marveling at the rate of destruction of anything having to do with social pleasures and civic interaction in Hong Kong--funky markets, parks, waterfront promenades, bike lanes (of course)--I was amazed how anything designed for the common good is quickly bulldozed, privatized, or replaced by a condo or office tower. According to my friend civic life is just not part of the culture. So in this case at least, the city is an accurate and physical reflection of how that culture views itself. The city is a 3-D manifestation of the social, and personal--and I'm suggesting that, in turn, a city, its physical being, reinforces those ethics and re-creates them in successive generations and in those who have immigrated to the city. Cities self-perpetuate the mind-set that made them.
Maybe every city has a unique sensibility but we don't have names for what they are or haven't identified them all. We can't pinpoint exactly what makes each city's people unique yet. How long does one have to be a resident before one starts to behave and think like a local? And where does this psychological city start? Is there a spot on the map where attitudes change? And is the inverse true? Is there a place where New Yorkers suddenly become Long Islanders? Will there be freeway signs with a picture of Billy Joel that alert motorists "attention, entering New York state of mind"?
Does living in New York City foster a hard-as-nails, no nonsense attitude? Is that how one would describe the New York state of mind? I've heard recently that Cariocas (residents of Rio) have a similar "okay, okay, get to the point" sensibility. Is that a legacy of the layers of historical happenstance that make up a particular city? Is that where it comes from? Is it a constantly morphing and slowly evolving worldview? Do the repercussions of local politics and the local laws foster how we view each other? Does it come from the socioeconomic-ethnic mix; are the proportions in the urban stew critical, like in a recipe? Does the evanescence of fame and glamour lie upon all of L.A. like whipped cream? Do the Latin and Asian populations that are fenced off from the celebrity playgrounds get mixed into this stew, resulting in a unique kind of social psychological fusion? Does that, and the way the hazy light looks on skin, make certain kinds of work and leisure activities more appropriate there?
Maybe this is all a bit of a myth, a willful desire to give each place its own unique aura. But doesn't any collective belief eventually become a kind of truth? If enough people act as if something is true, isn't it indeed "true," not objectively, but in the sense that it will determine how they will behave? The myth of unique urban character and unique sensibilities in different cities exists because we want it to exist.
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from BICYCLE DIARIES by David Byrne. Copyright © David Byrne, 2009
More in New York...
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-byrne/an-excerpt-from-embicycle_b_293402.html?view=screen
It is interesting in light of the late arrival of bike lanes here. It is equally interesting for Byrne's observations on urban personality traits.
(italics added)
__________________________________
I ride my bike almost every day here in New York. It's getting safer to do so, but I do have to be fairly alert when riding on the streets as opposed to riding on the Hudson River bike path or similar protected lanes. The city has added a lot of bike lanes in recent years, and they claim they now have more than any other city in the United States. But sadly most of them are not safe enough that one can truly relax, as is possible on the almost completed path along the Hudson or on many European bike lanes. That's changing, bit by bit. As new lanes are added some of them are more secure, placed between the sidewalk and parked cars or protected by a concrete barrier.
Between 2007 and 2008 bike traffic in New York increased 35 percent. Hard to tell if the cart is leading the horse here-- whether more lanes have inspired more bicycle usage or the other way around. I happily suspect that for the moment at least, both the Department of Transportation and New York City cyclists are on the same page. As more young creative types find themselves living in Brooklyn they bike over the bridges in increasing numbers. Manhattan Bridge bike traffic just about quadrupled last year (2008) and the bike traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge tripled. And those numbers will keep increasing as the city continues to make improvements to bike lanes and adds bike racks and other amenities. In this area the city is, to some extent, anticipating what will happen in the near future--a lot more people will use bikes for getting to work or for fun.
On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town. Unlike many other U.S. cities, here in New York almost everyone has to step onto the sidewalk and encounter other people at least once a day--everyone makes at least one brief public appearance. I once had to swerve to avoid Paris Hilton, holding her little doggie, crossing the street against the light and looking around as if to say, "I'm Paris Hilton, don't you recognize me?" From a cyclist's point of view you pretty much see it all.
Just outside a midtown theater a man rides by on a bike-- one of those lowriders. He's a grown man, who seems pretty normal in appearance, except he's got a monstrously huge boom box strapped to the front of the bike.
I ride off on my own bike and a few minutes later another boom-box biker passes by. This time it's a Jane-Austen-reading, sensible-shoe-wearing woman. She's on a regular bike, but again, with a (smaller) boom box strapped to the rear ... I can't hear what the music is.
City Archetypes
There is a magazine in a rack at the entrance to my local Pakistani lunch counter called InvAsian: A Journal for the Culturally Ambivalent.
What is it about certain cities and places that fosters specific attitudes? Am I imagining that this is the case? To what extent does the infrastructure of cities shape the lives, work, and sensibilities of their inhabitants? Quite significantly, I suspect. All this talk about bike lanes, ugly buildings, and density of population isn't just about those things, it's about what kinds of people those places turn us into. I don't think I'm imagining that people who move to L.A. from elsewhere inevitably lose a lot of that elsewhere and eventually end up creating L.A.-type work and being L.A.-type people. Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.How does this happen? Do they seep in surreptitiously through peer pressure and casual conversations? Is it the water, the light, the weather? Is there a Detroit sensibility? Memphis? New Orleans? (No doubt.) Austin? (Certainly.) Nashville? London?
Berlin? (I would say there's a Berlin sense of humor for sure.) Düsseldorf? Vienna? (Yes.) Paris? Osaka? Melbourne? Salvador? Bahia? (Absolutely.)
I was recently in Hong Kong and a friend there commented that China doesn't have a history of civic engagement. Traditionally in China one had to accommodate two aspects of humanity--the emperor and his bureaucracy, and one's own family. And even though that family might be fairly extended it doesn't include neighbors or coworkers, so a lot of the world is left out. To hell with them. As long as the emperor or his ministers aren't after me and my family is okay then all's right with the world. I had been marveling at the rate of destruction of anything having to do with social pleasures and civic interaction in Hong Kong--funky markets, parks, waterfront promenades, bike lanes (of course)--I was amazed how anything designed for the common good is quickly bulldozed, privatized, or replaced by a condo or office tower. According to my friend civic life is just not part of the culture. So in this case at least, the city is an accurate and physical reflection of how that culture views itself. The city is a 3-D manifestation of the social, and personal--and I'm suggesting that, in turn, a city, its physical being, reinforces those ethics and re-creates them in successive generations and in those who have immigrated to the city. Cities self-perpetuate the mind-set that made them.
Maybe every city has a unique sensibility but we don't have names for what they are or haven't identified them all. We can't pinpoint exactly what makes each city's people unique yet. How long does one have to be a resident before one starts to behave and think like a local? And where does this psychological city start? Is there a spot on the map where attitudes change? And is the inverse true? Is there a place where New Yorkers suddenly become Long Islanders? Will there be freeway signs with a picture of Billy Joel that alert motorists "attention, entering New York state of mind"?
Does living in New York City foster a hard-as-nails, no nonsense attitude? Is that how one would describe the New York state of mind? I've heard recently that Cariocas (residents of Rio) have a similar "okay, okay, get to the point" sensibility. Is that a legacy of the layers of historical happenstance that make up a particular city? Is that where it comes from? Is it a constantly morphing and slowly evolving worldview? Do the repercussions of local politics and the local laws foster how we view each other? Does it come from the socioeconomic-ethnic mix; are the proportions in the urban stew critical, like in a recipe? Does the evanescence of fame and glamour lie upon all of L.A. like whipped cream? Do the Latin and Asian populations that are fenced off from the celebrity playgrounds get mixed into this stew, resulting in a unique kind of social psychological fusion? Does that, and the way the hazy light looks on skin, make certain kinds of work and leisure activities more appropriate there?
Maybe this is all a bit of a myth, a willful desire to give each place its own unique aura. But doesn't any collective belief eventually become a kind of truth? If enough people act as if something is true, isn't it indeed "true," not objectively, but in the sense that it will determine how they will behave? The myth of unique urban character and unique sensibilities in different cities exists because we want it to exist.
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from BICYCLE DIARIES by David Byrne. Copyright © David Byrne, 2009
More in New York...
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-byrne/an-excerpt-from-embicycle_b_293402.html?view=screen
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Update on Code Enforcement
Earlier in the week I promised to get more information on the current state of code enforcement in New Albany.
In response to a question asked in a comment to a previous post, I laid out what I knew at the time. I had the opportunity to speak to Carl Malysz and pose the same question to him.
He essentially confirmed what I had written previously.
The only additional information he gave me is that the Building Commissioner's position is expected to be filled in a couple of weeks.
The filling of that position, along with the other code enforcement positions which were advertised as open positions, will constitute a complete reorganization of City's efforts to get serious about code issues. As many will recall, that was a platform plank from the Mayor's campaign. It was also touted as needed by several City Council candidates, myself included.
While it would have been nice to reach this point some time ago, I am hopeful that the City's on the right track now on that issue. I would think we should begin to see better results in the relatively near future, perhaps six to eight weeks.
In response to a question asked in a comment to a previous post, I laid out what I knew at the time. I had the opportunity to speak to Carl Malysz and pose the same question to him.
He essentially confirmed what I had written previously.
The only additional information he gave me is that the Building Commissioner's position is expected to be filled in a couple of weeks.
The filling of that position, along with the other code enforcement positions which were advertised as open positions, will constitute a complete reorganization of City's efforts to get serious about code issues. As many will recall, that was a platform plank from the Mayor's campaign. It was also touted as needed by several City Council candidates, myself included.
While it would have been nice to reach this point some time ago, I am hopeful that the City's on the right track now on that issue. I would think we should begin to see better results in the relatively near future, perhaps six to eight weeks.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Which Side Are You On?...Day 37
After Baron Hill's meeting the other day, I commented here that I was feeling optimistic. After President Obama's Labor Day speech today in Cincinnati, I again feel optimistic.
Included here is a link to the "Mad As Hell Doctor's Tour". It's coming to Louisville. They are solidly behind a single-payer plan. By most estimates this isn't going to be the plan which emerges. The compromise of a strong public option must be the "line in the sand" President Obama draws. The Mad As Hell Doctors know the best prescription, but it is crucial to get something passed. At least a public option is a step which will place the U.S. a bit closer to the rest of the developed nations which offer their citizens universal health coverage as a right of citizenship.
Recess is over, Congress. Now it's back to work.
Included here is a link to the "Mad As Hell Doctor's Tour". It's coming to Louisville. They are solidly behind a single-payer plan. By most estimates this isn't going to be the plan which emerges. The compromise of a strong public option must be the "line in the sand" President Obama draws. The Mad As Hell Doctors know the best prescription, but it is crucial to get something passed. At least a public option is a step which will place the U.S. a bit closer to the rest of the developed nations which offer their citizens universal health coverage as a right of citizenship.
Recess is over, Congress. Now it's back to work.
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